"I started Early -- Took my Dog --
And visited the Sea --
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me --"
Poem 520, excerpt
"I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know"
Poem 260, excerpt
Emily Dickinson (Amherst, MA, 1830-1886)
* * *
"The one power Dickinson trusted was the power of language, which she loved (...) By her own account she experienced an acute physical reaction to words, a euphoric shock. I know exactly what she meant, because her poetry has that effect. Ambush is its strategy. It knocks the breath out of you and leaves you giddy, like a nanosecond-long roller coaster ride."
Holland Cotter, excerpt from ‘My Hero, the Outlaw of Amherst’, published in the Arts Section, The New York Times, May 16, 2010
* * *
"Had I a mighty gun
I think I'd shoot the human race
And then to glory run!"
Poem 118, excerpt
Emily Dickinson (Amherst, MA, 1830-1886)
Further reading:
Emily Dickinson (Poets.org)
Emily Dickinson (Poetry Foundation)
Project Gutenberg: Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson. The Complete Poems (Bartleby.com)
Times Topics: Emily Dickinson (The New York Times)
Emily Dickinson (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Second Debut of Emily Dickinson (Virginia Quarterly Review)
Emily Dickinson Museum
Dickinson Electronic Archives
Emily Dickinson: The Poetry of Flowers (The New York Botanical Garden)
